I40 CLUB TYPES OF NUCLEAR POLYNESIA. 
death. If the soldiers are onward on to war and a lizard crosses the 
path the expedition is foredoomed to disaster and in such case will 
surely return to make a fresh start under better omens; but if the 
lizard runs along the path with the warriors it is a sure sign of welcome 
victory; therefore in Plate III k it is rich with significance that this 
lizard is carved in the direct thrust-line of the club. 
The sea-turtle is found in figures 60, 61, and 105, one quite graphic 
and the others assuming conventional forms. ‘The turtle is an incar- 
nation of one of the greatest of the war gods. We have no record of 
any legend of the Jonah type, such as is clearly suggested by the draw- 
ing of a human figure within the belly of the turtle in figure 105, but it 
is supported collaterally in Samoan custom. Here the turtle is sacred 
to Moso the war-god; in lands set apart by the cult of Moso the turtle 
was sanctified by a food tabu. In case any person to whom the tabu 
was not binding ate the savory meat the devotees of Moso rendered 
propitiation by laying a child wrapped up in leaves in a cold pit-oven, 
thus typifying the preparation of food for the god, from which it is 
an easy step to portray the god as having ingested the offering. 
There are 12 pictures of various fishes; apparently 7 genera are 
represented. 
The sting ray is presented in figure 63. This is a deathly animal 
by reason of its tail. The barbed bone is the instrument of secret 
assassination where the murderer, lacking the courage of the club, 
takes advantage of his unwary victim and stabs him with this dagger, 
whose wound is regarded as inevitably fatal. The fish is the symbol 
of.a war-god and therefore is a most proper addition to a club. 
The shark is recognizable in figures 63 to 65. I recall no legend 
in which the shark is associated with war. A representation of the 
fish was the sign of a very solemn tabu of property and forecast the 
punishment by the shark of any violation thereof. 
In figure 66 it is permissible to recognize the bonito. This fish is 
the gentleman of the sea; he is entitled to a special vocabulary in 
Samoan speech (The Polynesian Wanderings, 352). In figures 67 
and 69 there is a possibility that we find the same fish, one copy 
inverted; yet it is probably rather better to regard them as distinct 
generically, and the same is true of figure 68; I do not recognize the 
distinctive characters. 
The four figures 70 to 73 afford us five views of an incident of the 
sea, an association of bird and fish and the bird behind the fish, from 
which it is an easy step to the bird after the fish; in all but one of these 
views a straight line is asociated with the group, always in the same 
direction, always just out of the median line, and always interrupted 
by no more than wing of bird and tip of fish’s tail. Despite the fact 
that the fish is represented as very large and the bird as quite small, 
there can be little doubt about the subject of these sketches. All the 
